


A promise above a moonlit sea

by Warren_wizard_in_Tyrian_purple_outfit



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 08:32:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15553758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warren_wizard_in_Tyrian_purple_outfit/pseuds/Warren_wizard_in_Tyrian_purple_outfit
Summary: The masterminds behind the Warbringers: Jaina animated short video did an amazing job. The moment I saw it, I knew I had to write a ficlet about it.The spirit of a dead sailor watches Jaina Proudmoore visit her father's destroyed fleet and remembers the past.





	A promise above a moonlit sea

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Warbringers: Jaina](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/402972) by Blizzard. 



Beware the witches of the sea, my granny used to say. They never cease to talk with words that sneak into your brain, take root. They take you away from loved ones, they drown you, kill you and eat you. Can't remember in what order. My granny's warnings are now a dark cliff in the night. One more thing I've forgotten now I'm dead. Us dead remember few things, or so I think. Only the faces of the living stay the same. And the grief. 

A living face sails amongst us right now. Easy to see her. Amidst tne wreckage of once stubborn ships and the bodies of sailors, helmsmen and bosuns, a heartbeat makes heads turn. Besides, she is a witch. And she is family. Family is important, Daelin had said to us the first day we set foot on his ships and I'd have recognized a witch anywhere. My name is shaky-leg Devai, 45 years spent on sea, a good enough number to say one witch's tits from another's. Not that she needs recognizing. We all know her, have known her for ever, it seems. 

Beware the witches of the sea, my granny loved saying. 

Thinking back, it's a mystery how my granny knew a sailor's shitworth of things about sea witches. A wrinkled old crone she was, a being of the mountains, bedding with caves and high places. The puddles after a rain were the only water she had set eyes on. 

Truth be told though, my granny was right about Daelin. He'd been a witch, if ever there was one. What? You think magic cares what fruits happen to be between your legs? Daelin Proudmoore had come to our village, years ago. Tall, noble and grim. Serious as the tide. A war - there is always a war killing people - had stolen his crews, so he was in the search for new ones. People to join the navy and obey his commands. Who better, he'd asked us, than the hard people of Drustvar? Witch-words he'd used, such as ''staunch'' and ''resilient'' and ''dutifully firm''. I remember them alright, because they did the trick, for me and many others. Promises of adventures, vast seas and service to Kul Tiras, our nation. Twenty of us escaped our parents' eyes and went with him, me being the youngest lass of the bunch. What if it took'im forty and five years to drown us and kill us? It happened in the end, my granny be damned. Have to admit, however, I'm not clear on who is to blame. The admiral or his daughter. 

She has stopped now, the witch, and is staring at all the destruction. The spirits, we feel drawn to her. Well, of course there are spirits here. We stayed back out of grief, mostly, and well, it ain't proper for a sailor to abandon her ship, is it now? You can't ask the day sky to shed its sun, it's the same thing. Unable to be heard or act but here we are.

The marines approach her first while the deckhands stop their eternal card games and the oarsmen cease their cursing mid-sentence and the first mates look at their captains for guidance. Since the first day I'd met them, the marines had scared me. Never trust something with an unknown name, one more warning from my granny. Soldiers they are, warriors of the sea, not marines, whatever that meant. Although not a marine myself, I match their pace and get near her.

She looks like the first time I saw her, when she had visited her father's flagship, a couple months after I completed my training. Weren't so different, her and me, back then. Same golden hair, same height, same hawk nose. You would think the admiral would be angry at her for blazing her own path in life but there were only smiles that day. As well as more witch words from him. He'd called her the pride of our nation's eyes. The daughter of the sea. The great practitioner of the Art, a mage second to none, Jaina Proudmoore. Sacred and paramount familial bonds between them and us. Family-in-arms. Hard to forget witch-words, more so when you long to hear them from your own family. Witch-words leading to our deaths. Wine had flowed like blood that day. 

Oh, I could offer my soul to the first dirty witch for the chance to wrap my hands around her little neck and snap it like a twig. Alas, death is full of empty desires. Not that I have many. Lived a good, hard life, me Devai. Sailed around the world, beneath stars and sun, always above the waves, thank every nasty spirit for that. Killed, loved, laughed, all in good measure.

Look at her, she has now laid eyes upon the Folentyne. I am the jumbled heap of bones beneath his stern. Tangled between rotten wood and muddy kelp. Fitting enough for my tastes, I s'ppose. The Folentyne, now, there never was a finer warship, lemme tell you. Ready to please, ready to brave the storms. A massive man o'war - so many times I'd mended his sails, caressed his lines and defended his honor that a piece of me soul - the one going bitter the most perhaps - stayed in him. The sea goes beyond death, so do her travellers. 

So, what does she want now? Hasn't she done enough already, that Daughter of the Sea? Has she come here to take pleasure in our sorry state? Walk away from the dead, even a man with a shell's brain can admit to that simple truth. Are those…tears? Running down her cheeks? Impossible. 

On one of her visits, she had announced herself by lifting the flagship out of the water. Just a trick, she'd said, just an answer to the admiral's never-ending questions about her progress in magic. It had put a ferocious smile on our Daelin's lips and a good scare on everyone else's hearts. That's when my knee broke, during all that bouncing around, leaving me with a nickname I'd despised since. Not good with balance, me. At her third or fourth visit - or maybe it was during the Crestfall battle - I recall an orcish axe shattering my kneecap. Keeping my memory straight remains damn hard. 

That's what she does now. Raises her hands, commands the magic inside her and the Folentyne groans. A difficult task, no doubt about it, to free a ship out of the mud and the rocks and wake it once more. Gently, like before, she lifts him, straightens him against the current while he shrieks like a woman giving birth. I join my scream to the ship's own, a silent noise that goes on until the battered Folentyne rests once more in the middle of a moonlit sea. Torrents of water roar through the gun ports, a hundred cascades leave the Folentyne, letting him breathe again. Gods below, he's still beautiful. Injured, broken, but there's still fight hiding under the shells and sea-dirt. 

The agitation among the seamen and all this magic has drawn his attention. Poor old Daelin, he comes and stands behind her. One and all, we bend the knee, he's our admiral and we swore an oath to him. Blue blood, Grand Admiral of the Alliance, winner of victories but his greatest achievement, if you were to listen to his boasts, was his four children. One dead, one taking after him, one lost, then found, and the fourth was the sea. Who else but she to embrace him in death? 

"I'm listening now, father." Anger swells up on me. It's very late for that now, bitch. Dead late. You left his side, you stood aside, you watched us getting slaughtered by the monsters you called friends. We witnessed this and we witnessed our deaths. Abandonment, betrayal, death, and now you ask for forgiveness? Your coming here is wrong. You made your decisions the day you crossed the ocean. 

The day everything had gone wrong. 

And how could it not? Did she really think her father would not seek her out, once he'd learned she was alive? After all the terrors of the demonic invasion she had lived through? The world could make with more sense than fathers pursuing their daughters or the daughters doing a better job at hiding. I know that well. My own father had found me days after I took the shilling. Honey-word bastard, liar and indecent, had accused the admiral of being. Said he would be my death. Correct, I s'ppose but then again, there's always a thing that causes someone's death. Show me a million deaths, there will be a million things at fault. All prophecies come true eventually, that's life for you. 

Noone and nothing though could have foretold what had taken place in Theramore. The admiral had found his daughter at last - he also found enemies upon the rise. Orcs, ogres, trolls, our enemies of old. We called them savage foes, they called us enemies, she called them friends, we called for her help, she remained silent. Blood had flowed like wine that day. 

Beware the witches of the sea. They kill you, without raising a finger or blinking an eye. Answer me, someone, what was worse? The betrayal or the defeat? You believe it was the injuries or the sadness that did our admiral in? My life, it was simple. Not much of a story. Not something you'll tell to friends at night, all watery-eyed. But the admiral's...the Horde was a constant threat during his life, monsters such as those we found with Jaina had killed his son, had fought him again and again. Were we to make peace? Don't forget, there's always a war. 

We didn't understand, she'd said. According to her, the orc nation had no desire for war – they'd been her allies against the demons. Were we supposed to believe the Horde was no longer our enemy, that there was no reason to fight? For a heartbeat only, I'd believed her words - I admit that with shame…moments before the orcish attack...or was it us who first drew blood? Remembering gets less easy as time goes by. But it ain't matter. Families fight together. And now she seeks absolution. 

Daelin is behind you, fool, look him in the eye. He deserves that, at the very least. He's right there, serious as ever, silent. Not turning away, not reaching for his cutlass, not attacking. 

When he smiles, it's with so much sadness that shame swallows me whole. None deserves to be that vulnerable. And then it hits me. He's already forgiven her. No, not true. For him, there never was anything to forgive. His favorite child. Isn't that the job of a parent anyway? I wonder if my parents had forgiven me and I wonder what would tears feel like on my rotten cheeks. She breathes heavily. She understands maybe? Does she actually know the gift she was given? And does regret really guide her now? Words ain't nothing next to actions and, let's not be liars, it was her inaction that doomed us all. Or not? 

Dammit all, if the admiral let her go in peace, I have no reason to make a fuss out of it. None of us. Asked and earned, witch. You sure as the sunrise didn't deserve it but you got it. Now, run back into your hole and whether you pass the rest of your days in misery or happiness, I give not a single damn. The Horde lovers you've collected must already miss you. Go away. 

Sadly, she doesn't turn tail and leave. That's a first for her. Remains standing there, eyes half-closed, breathing heavy. Like thinking a whole bunch of important decisions. Before I could get closer to her - past the surrounding marines - in order to look into her eyes, she vanishes and reappears in Folentyne's foredeck. Aboard our ship. What for? 

Giving us his usual fist on the brow, Daelin Proudmoore fades away, back to his eternal rest, having proven himself to be the father every child needs. It was an honor, my lord Admiral. 

Sudden movement and the crying of wood startle me. Jaina has raised her hands and like it's some sort of command, the Folentyne sails forward. Slow as a sad, sleepless night, with a noiseful of protests but moving. How can this be? No wind tonight. Folentyne has torn sails and a hull with more holes than a net, but the witch has magic. Plenty of it, it seems. Perfect at her job, a true Proudmoore. 

For unknown reasons, the marines have already taken position at the rails and behind the canons. I glimpse bleary-eyed Willie in the crow's nest, looking around with the baffled face he was born with. First mate Lipi hunches at the prow, doing his best to penetrate the darkness ahead. The Folentyne sails forth, a ghost ship in every sense of the word. Filled with spirits - angry, despaired, sad, vengeful - and a sea witch. No choice for me but join them. My bones are still stuck in place and carried along, the ship's rebirth hasn't managed to sweep them away. Can't say I really care, they're part of a life long lost, like your childhood toys. 

The ship's tidesage, Groska, seems terrified of Jaina. Sitting cross-legged on the deck, a good distance away, she mouths incomprehensible superstitions at her uncaring back, while her skeletal hand clutches at the hole where her heart used to be. I knew Groska to be a sensible mage, as far as one of their kind can be, anyway. So why does she makes the sign of good luck in the air? Why is she blessing this trip?

After a while, my puzzlement gives way to some form of understanding. It's clear, from reading the stars, that we sail west. Our destination is the shores of Kalimdor. The place the orcs call home. Why? Are we going to be spoils of war or is this something else? A last service for us all? We – She goes to war? Dare I hope? Is there even hope after death...And then there are the marines. A day hadn't passed where I wasn't afraid of them. Ever eager to use their swords, the marines were. Full of bravado and thirsty for blood. Being the first ones who'd gotten killed didn't change much. In fact, it changed nothing. The promise of death is still in their eyes and they seem to be awaiting something. Find meself still scared of them. 

Most of all, however, I'm scared of her. A single living soul amidst invisible ghosts. No idea what the marines expect of her, if anything, but I manage to gaze into her eyes, straight down her soul. The way she walks around the ship, silent and grim like the tide. The way she looks towards the distant, unseen shore and how she clenches her fists. A promise of revenge gives her life and, I swear upon my bleached bones, never was that desire meant for humans. I'll witness her and I say this to anyone who crosses our path. Beware. Beware the Daughter of the Sea.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a casual Blizzard fan, not very well acquainted with the lore. Forgive me if I've made a mess.
> 
> The story is heavily influenced from the video (how could it not, it's a masterpiece) and I hope I do it justice.
> 
> Honorable mention – without the help of Alkistis, Apinkducky and Chocostains, this fic would have been a complete and disastrous mess.


End file.
